Vet-med students to choose faculty representative in October byelection

By Babur Ilchi, September 24 2015 — 

The Students’ Union is holding a byelection for the position of veterinary medicine representative from Oct. 14–16.

The budget for the byelection estimates the costs at over $14,000. This includes the cost for licensing online voting software, the salaries of the two Chief Returning Officers, candidate funds and election staff training.

Vice-president operations and finance Sarah Pousette said the byelection is the result of nobody running for the position last year. She stressed that the final cost likely won’t be as high as the budget indicates.

“We’re doing all of our promotion at the vet med campus. It’s all going to be focused there and so it [costs] significantly less,” Pousette said.

The software used for the by-election is CanVote, which allows students to vote using their My U of C account. It is the same one used during the general election. Pousette said the cost of licensing the CanVote software is inevitable.

“Basically we pay [for CanVote] in different instalments twice a year and that covers the cost of our entire election process — our general election and byelection.”

Pousette believes that representation of veterinary medicine students is important. The veterinary medicine students have classes at the Spyhill campus and have had problems finding student representatives in the past.

“I know this number for CanVote seems high, but I don’t think you can put a price on student representation,” Pousette said.

Nomination days for the position run from Sept. 28–30.